Imminent Crash of Oil, Change You Can't Believe In = Obama/Baker Pact & Ain't No Escape from Collapse (WIN! WIN! WIN!!!!)

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Prepare yourselves for some coming very bad times (as I've been documenting here for years). Indeed, they may last for several years. And if you haven't already started your preparation by having moved into employment that will last through the coming bad times (the "greening revolution" in a solid company would be my suggestion), it may be too late to do anything except hunker down, cultivate your gardens, get to know your family again and raise some livestock. This advice is not for the gun-happy, no-mind, Tea-Party-er types (although they would also benefit from it) who expect the government to move in and "take the rest of their freedoms." That's been pretty effectively used on the poorly educated by the righties for decades now, culminating in the murder of doctors providing abortions and angry, alienated bomb makers hiding out in the mountains, in order to solidify power with the vital 20-30% of the electorate that don't bother to learn about any issues except their always-present fear of learning something new and concepts they don't understand but think they do due to the constant stream of misinformation from the LimpBeckO'Reil-em-up factor like "socialism," "communism" and "fascism."

I wrote papers back in my undergraduate days that began with sentences like "Ramparts Magazine says that the end of the oceans will occur in 1995, but even if it's a little bit later it won't matter because we know now that the people in power will not implement conservative (truly conservative) policies that will permanently safeguard our main source of water (as well as all the other natural resources) on this planet from dumping and the uses that increasing world population will bring to everything of value on this planet." Ramparts called its series Eco-Catastrophe and was poo-poo'ed as the crazy-eyed Left for years thereafter as the industries were allowed to become even more concentrated and profit-driven by mergers and acquisitions, which incurred enormous debt to be paid off; unions were either banished or decimated; and people were devastated at the damage that had occurred to the mountains (from the coal extraction) and the rivers rich with the runoff from the pesticides and hormones present in the food in the name of progress.

My comrade-in-arms at Reality Zone has some facts you may want to consider and use as a basis for your plans regarding self defense. And, yes, imminent doesn't have to mean "tomorrow." Just soon enough. (Oh, and do you see why they want to go ahead right now and stripmine Alaska and pollute the rest of the oceans?) (Emphasis marks added - Ed.)

The Imminent Crash Of Oil Supply: Be Afraid

Nicholas C. Arguimbau

23 April, 2010

Countercurrents.org

What is going to happen and how it came to pass that we weren't forewarned

Look at this graph and be afraid.

It does not come from Earth First. It does not come from the Sierra Club. It was not drawn by Socialists or Nazis or Osama Bin Laden or anyone from Goldman-Sachs. If you are a Republican Tea-Partier, rest assured it does not come from a progressive Democrat. And vice versa. It was drawn by the United States Department of Energy, and the United States military's Joint Forces Command concurs with the overall picture.

What does it imply? The supply of the world's most essential energy source is going off a cliff. Not in the distant future, but in a year and a half. Production of all liquid fuels, including oil, will drop within 20 years to half what it is today. And the difference needs to be made up with "unidentified projects," which one of the world's leading petroleum geologists says is just a "euphemism for rank shortage," and the world's foremost oil industry banker says is "faith based."The original graph is available here.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/conference/2009/session3/Sweetnam.pdf

This graph was prepared for a DOE meeting in spring, 2009. Take a good look at what it says, assuming it to be correct:

1. Conventional oil will be almost all gone in 20 years, and there is nothing known to replace it.

2. Production of petroleum from existing conventional sources has been dropping at a rate slightly over 4% per year for at least a year and will continue to do so for the indefinite future.

3. The graph implies that we are past the peak of production and that there are 750 billion barrels of conventional oil left (the areas under the "conventionals" portion of the graph, extrapolated to the right as an exponentional). Assuming that the remaining reserves were 900 billion or more at the halfway point, then we are at least 150 billion barrels, or 5 years, past the midpoint.

4. Total petroleum production from all presently known sources, conventional and unconventional, will remain "flat" at approximately 83 mbpd for the next two years and then will proceed to drop for the foreseeable future, at first slowly but by 4% per year after 2015.

5. Demand will begin to outstrip supply in 2012, and will already be 10 million barrels per day above supply in only five years. The United States Joint Forces Command concurs with these specific findings.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/conference/2009/session3/Sweetnam.pdf 10 million bpd is equivalent to half the United States' entire consumption. To make up the difference, the world would have to find another Saudi Arabia and get it into full production in five years, an impossibility.

See The Oil Drum, http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5154

6. The production from presently existing conventional sources will plummet from its present 81 mbpd to 30 mbpd by 2030, a 63% drop in a 20-year period.

7. Meeting demand requires discovering, developing, and bringing to full production 60 mbpd (105-45) of "unidentified projects" in the 18-year period of 2012-2030 and approximately 25 mbpd of such projects by 2020, on the basis of a very conservative estimate of only 1% annual growth in demand. The independent Oxford Institute of Energy Studies has estimated a possible development of 6.5 mbpd of such projects, including the Canadian tar sands, implying a deficit of 18-19 mbpd as compared to demand, and an approximate 14 mbpd drop in total liquid fuels production relative to 2012, a 16% drop in 8 years.

8. The curve is virtually identical to one produced by geologists Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrere and published in "The End of Cheap Oil," in Scientific American, March, 1998, twelve years ago. They projected that production of petroleum from conventional sources would drop from 74 mbpd in 2003 (as compared to 84 mbpd in 2008 in the DOE graph) and drop to 39 mbpd by 2030 (as compared to 39 mbpd by 2030 in the DOE graph!). Campbell and Laherrere predicted a 2003 "peak," and the above graph implies a 'peak" (not necessarily the actual peak, but the midpoint of production of 2005 or before.

. . . So here we are, if the graph is right, on the edge of a precipice, with no prior warning from either the industry, which knows what it possesses, or the collective governments, which ostensibly protect the public interest.

As Colin Campbell, a research geologist who has worked for many large oil companies and studied oil depletion extensively (http://www.countercurrents.org/%20http://www.peakoil.net/about-aspo/dr-colin-campbell) says, "The warning signals have been flying for a long time. They have been plain to see, but the world turned a blind eye, and failed to read the message." http://www.greatchange.org/ov-campbell,outlook.html

The world was completely transformed by oil for the duration of the twentieth century, but if the graph is right, within 20 years it will be virtually gone but our dependence upon it will not. Instead, we have

CONTINUED

As far as I can fathom it was gauged to run out exactly when Dick Cheney's new artificial heart would.

If James Baker Likes Him, Obama Can't Be A Socialist

Gary Baumgarten Paltalk News Network

My conservative friends are all bemoaning that President Obama - in their view - is taking this country down the path of socialism. After all - he did push through a health reform bill - didn't he?

But a closer look at the president's record would indicate that he is acting more like a Republican than a Democrat. And now there's renewed proof of that in the form of James Baker's endorsement of Obama's foreign policy.

Let's look at the facts. Obama campaigned on an anti-Bush platform of promising to bring the troops home from Iraq. But as president he is following the very withdrawal strategy drawn up by his Republican predecessor.

He has decided that the best way to win the objective - whatever that actually means - in Afghanistan - is to add more troops. Where have we seen that strategy before? Oh, I remember now. In Iraq. During then-President George W. Bush's watch.

And domestically - this health care bill - in spite of the partisan breathless pronouncements to the contrary - falls far short of socialistic. There's no single payer option. Something that those who voted for Obama thought they were getting.

In fact, if you really look at the health reform legislation - it takes the form of something the Republicans previously supported. In fact - the requirement that you have to be covered by medical insurance is pretty similar to the health care law in Massachusetts. One that then-Governor Mitt Romney, a Republican takes credit for. But don't take my word for it. Listen to what James Baker has to say. You know, the guy who served as Ronald Reagan's chief of staff. As Reagan's treasury secretary. As George H.W. Bush's chief of staff. And as George H.W. Bush's secretary of state. That James Baker - the one with unimpeachable Republican credentials.

At a forum sponsored by the Texas Tribune, Baker had nothing but kind things to say about Obama's foreign policy. Baker likes the way Obama is handling Iraq. He likes the way he's handling Afghanistan. Why, Baker even likes the way Obama is standing up to Israel!

If Obama is far left-leaning and heading the nation down the path of socialism like some conservatives suggest - it certainly is something that has escaped Baker's attention. But it's not the right's unfair criticism of Obama that gets me. It's the lack of criticism from the left. Had John McCain been elected and had the Republican candidate for president initiated the same policies as Obama there would have been a hue and cry from the left - accusing McCain of just being another Bush.

Obama. Change that we can believe in? Hardly. From here

This should make us realize that that whole "standing up to Israel" on the settlements thing by Obama and then Biden was a very good insider joke on the rest of the populace. Notice the Israeli laughter? But you decide.

Joe Bageant has many words of wisdom to share. He mentions in passing the reasons why I've been covering the financial collapse of 2007-9 in such detail (that not many people seem to be really interested in understanding what happened and why as long as they aren't suffering too much yet), and there's even an echo from the Jim Jones/CIA-sponsored Guyana massacre too. There ain't no escape from collapse is there? Tell us like you've seen it for the last decade, Joe. (Emphasis marks added - Ed.)

Joe, In response to a letter from a reader (Joe, why did you crap out on us?), you wrote: "Places like Ecuador, northern California - all sorts of places - (are) creating little spots of sustainability as best as possible." Since the US is the nexus of all the fraud, empire, control, and will thus be the center of the pain in the upcoming financial collapse (AND contains a huge percentage of "useless eaters", i.e. superfluous workers) have you given any thought as to where the best places/countries in the world will be to "hang out" while the Collective Madness and Economic Collapse take over? Thanks, Kevin

------ Kevin, Well, I don't think it's possible to "hang out" until the collapse is over. For starters, it could take 50 years. Or it could take five years. If we knew, more people would probably get off their asses, even in America. But I don't think it will be all at once, or even recognizable at any given moment to techno-hybridized Americans on the ground. For example, most Americans STILL do not recognize the irreversible ecological collapse so well underway. More aware thinkers are calling this "denial," but it is not. They are simply experiencing the world they see before them, as honestly as their senses and experience permit. And that ain't much. Thanks to technology and layers upon layers of mediation by TV, movies, the Internet, etc., gadgets and manufactured imagery, we all live many steps removed from reality.

Collapse is symbolized to each of us in different ways. To some it would be the sustained malfunction and lack of access of the Internet, which is surely coming. Incidentally, this will be capitalized upon by privatizing the net and selling access at a much higher price, just as with oil. Of course they will experience it as "the consumers" they have been reduced to. So they will see it as bad guys charging money for things that used to be free. Given that their consciousness is a product of technology and its false promise of solutions and endless plentitude, they can never understand that everything is a finite resource and that technology itself can reach such a point of complexity as to be unsustainable. Even your laptop and router is made of petroleum and both eat oil or coal.

Others might perceive collapse as banking failure, given their absolute belief that money is the blood of society - a capitalist hallucination if ever there was one. My point is that many will not even understand that collapse is going on because capitalism will provide excuses and more fake solutions at ever higher prices - mainly at the expense of the world's poor and defenseless of course - until it can no longer extract from them through banking, military force, or other means.

This slows down the inevitable and helps the western world maintain its disastrous belief systems. None of which answers your question, but I just had to say it. There is really no "safe place" to run. For instance, the banking system may utterly fail; actually, it already has, yet no one is calling for an entirely new system. This shows you both the thoroughness of indoctrination of the American people, and the astuteness of the overlords who profit from the masses. Gasoline for cars can become nearly unavailable, and energy prices can become exorbitant, as they are becoming in the UK. And again, people will slowly learn to suck it up, and the system will roll on for a while longer.

The more perceptive among them will dream, and are now dreaming, of escape. Escape as they conceive it does not exist. The ongoing collapse manifests itself in the least developed world too, and even harsher terms: hunger, lack of water, warfare, government corruption, infrastructure collapse, crime. It's a planetary problem and no one escapes that. They just experience it in different ways. The question is not so much where to do it as how to do it. The question is not "Where can I run to to escape?" It is "What sorts of problems can I best deal with?"

To my mind, you cannot deal with them alone, despite the romantic imagery of being "off the grid" on some homestead growing your own food. Yes, there are people doing that successfully. But it has been my experience that they are people who've wanted to do that for a long time, and that they are the kind of people suited to deal with the problems that come with that life. I've done it and believe me, it's not for the average American, who is, quite frankly speaking, incompetent in the ways of the earth. It's a very long learning curve, even if you grew up on a farm. You don't just stick seeds in the ground and wait for your food. Every spot on the earth is unique and you have to come to understand the place you are, which takes time, error and dedication.

Not to be a smart ass or snide, but let me ask: How much do you love your fellow man? Or do you merely want to save your own ass? By now you must know the answer. From what I've seen, a person can be honest with himself on this matter, then pursue either route more effectively. If you have the temperament and character to readily love other people around you, and the willingness to labor solely for sustenance, community and friendship, then there are countless options. Because that's what most of the rest of world's people do every day, if allowed to. So you could do that in any number of places on the planet, especially here in the New World south of the US. You can do it in literally thousands of places, some of which are in the US.

I get emails from all over. But I don't give out contacts anymore because I learned the hard way in Belize that human chemistry is a complex thing. And most Americans do not come into approximately sustainable situations with either the social skills or the willingness to sacrifice for the group. Hell, some Americans starting up such communities don't have those qualities. Yet, believe me, just being in a place where life is more fundamental and simple, if hard, goes a long way toward peace of mind and discovering human normalcy. It's the learning ground. And usually one learns that people who escape at least some of the ravages of our slow collapse, always seem to do it in cooperation with a community of some sort. Either an already existing one, or an intentional one they create between themselves.

There's nothing new in this, of course. Latin America and the world have countless communities hundreds of year old. Governments come and go, rivers dry up, but the people always have tortillas, one way or another. Americans and Europeans usually see these people as poor, thanks to our heavy social conditioning, industrialization and commoditized consciousness - not to mention the denial of the effects of colonialism by Euro-American culture. We see no connection between our iPods, high speed wireless, and, say, the present condition of the Haitian or Dominican people.

Anyway, to me, this is the bottom line:  There is no escape in the sense Americans and European culture thinks of escape. Which is mainly running away to a place where you will get something for nothing in a new and different way - in this case, security and safety from the storm - and also keep some or most of the stuff and gadgetry and ease that has come to represent "quality of life." Unless you are rich, this is impossible. And rich these days, including here in Mexico, means so fucking well-heeled that even a 90% devaluation cannot hurt you.

Oh, there are retirees still living down here on the last shreds of the glory days of the empire. They will tell you there is nothing wrong up there, because they are still getting their checks. But I'm not seeing many newcomers join their ranks. Not at that level. Beyond that, the empire never goes away. It always claims you as its "citizen," which is to say its property. And lately the empire has been extending its tentacles toward expats, in order to extract new money for its failed system. The rest of us, the non-rich who would prefer to take a shot at some different life - and just about anything will do in the dark of the night when it is gnawing at your guts - must choose another way to cross the border (the "gringo wetbacks"). But always we run up against the same barrier, the same closed gateway to what we suspect is greater satisfaction and peace of mind, but increasingly cannot afford the price of admission, if we play the same old brainwashed money game.

I have come to think the price of admission anywhere in the world, (except in America and Europe, where enough dough will get your ass kissed in any circles) is service to others. We have been indoctrinated by an earth devouring capitalist system to believe otherwise. Believe that giving only depletes. And that mankind and civilization came about through kings and warriors and "great men." But the essential glue of man the social animal, and society has always been on cooperation and sharing. That an endless stream of elite thieves have always managed to steal the fruits of that cooperation does not matter. And the best that is in man still rests on the same fundamentals - cooperation for the greater good of all. So I would suggest that in planning for the future, you first spend many days pondering the question: How can I best go about giving up the world as I have known it - which, after all, is the root of our pain and of our catastrophe - and serve others every day and in as many ways large and small as possible.

In other words, sacrifice. In truth, the sacrifice will not be sacrifice, but liberation, because Americans are buried under so much material shit and petty notions as to entitlement, that shedding such things is a blessing. A gift. From that vantage point you can "watch the collapse" while you help put up a pole barn in Oregon or make love in a Patagonian mountain shack after a hard day of well digging, or smoke a joint in utter relaxation after rescuing orphans from the streets of Guadalajara. And chances are that the collapse of the empire will not much cross your mind. There is no escape, but there is freedom. And if our fellow Americans long ago forgot that, well, one can still get there alone. But its not for the faint of heart. In art and labor, Joe

Think about that. And then there's more fun below.

Might I suggest "Every Sperm Is Sacred?" A lark at the expense of the Pontiff for Perverts:

An internal Foreign Office memo about this September's papal visit to Britain which started as a Friday afternoon joke, today has resulted in a formal government apology to the Vatican. The memorandum, apparently written following a brainstorming session by a group of junior civil servants planning events for the four-day visit by Pope Benedict XVI, suggested among other ideas that he might like to start a helpline for abused children, sack "dodgy" bishops, open an abortion ward, launch his own brand of condoms, preside at a civil partnership, perform forward rolls with children, apologise for the Spanish armada and sing a song with the Queen.

One online commenter critical of the Foreign Office sniffed, "Once Oxbridge scrapped its Latin entrance paper and oiks began to be actively encouraged to apply, this sort of degeneration was almost bound to happen." I should say so - no reference to reinstatement of the Acts of Supremacy and Uniformity.

Thinking Circular Thoughts

So the Pentagon believes “surplus oil capacity could disappear within two years and there could be serious shortages by 2015 with a significant economic and political impact.” This little gem was found in a Joint Operating Environment Report issued by the US Joint Forces Command. And of course, we all know what this is. It is “an intellectual foundation upon which we will construct the concept to guide our future force developments.” In other words, the Pentagon is prepared to burn more oil so it can use oil up so it will have a justification to invade even more countries to replace the oil they’ve burned up getting the oil they need to invade other countries. Or something like that. Of course, with the fully burdened cost of pumping a gallon of gas in Afghanistan averaging

$400 a gallon, this could do wonders for our deficit. While the Pentagon sends billions pouring out of its military tailpipes, the Chinese have discovered the pen is mightier than the sword, especially if the pen is signing contracts for future oil deliveries and joint ventures to develop future oil fields. “Future fuel supplies are of acute importance to the US army because it is believed to be the biggest single user of petrol in the world.” Gosh, could it be that if we put down the sword and picked up the pen, our army just might burn less fuel? It would be a hell of a lot cheaper and burn less fuel if we flew a trade delegation overseas to cut the best deal it could.

Perish the thought! The Pentagon doesn’t want oil, it doesn’t want victory and it sure as hell doesn’t want to spread democracy to the world. All it wants in a justification for its existence. And burning oil to justify fighting for more oil is all the justification it needs.

The report warns of the political upheaval that could accompany the economic a shortage of oil could bring. “One should not forget that the Great Depression spawned a number of totalitarian regimes that sought economic prosperity for their nations by ruthless conquest.” Gosh! Does that sound like somebody we know?

Well, does it?